Book review: The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas, by Daniel James
When journalist Daniel James is asked to write a biography of reclusive artist Ezra Maas, who disappeared seven years earlier while working on his final masterpiece, he can’t resist an offer that seems too good to be true. But he is quickly drawn into the frightening and mysterious world of The Maas Foundation, a shadowy organisation determined to protect the legacy of the artist at any cost.
As he gets closer to the truth about Maas, James spirals into paranoia and obsession, leaving a trail of devastation behind him.
This is one of the most intriguing, meta novels I’ve read in some time. It takes inspiration from postmodernism, philosophy, noir and hard-boiled detective stories, referencing writers and thinkers like Roland Barthes, Paul Auster, Jean Baudrillard and Thomas Pynchon. The pages are full of references to art, music, film, fiction and pop culture, lending a sometimes academic authority to the tale.
The book is comprised of interviews, news reports and James’ original text, much of which was destroyed, the story pieced together by an unnamed friend of the author, who cites the destruction of the original manuscript alongside the disappearance of his friend as reasons not to identify himself.
Reading this book at times is like immersing yourself in a piece of performance art that spills from the pages out across the internet and into the real world. At the heart of the narrative is the nature of reality itself: this is a labyrinthine tale, of stories within stories, real people brushing shoulders with fictional characters in a dark world of rumour and myth where you can never be sure what is true.
The pages of the book are heavy with footnotes. Initially, you might have the urge to skim through them but resist if you can. These notes contain all kinds of fascinating details and wormholes into alternate stories, other lives. They deepen the world of the novel, but ensure the narrative remains fragmented, never allowing the reader to become too immersed in the story: there’s always another thread to follow. It’s easy to see how the biographer James could become so obsessed by this intricate account of one man’s life, where nothing is ever as it first appears.
As a book essentially about someone writing a book, this is often a piece of hyper self-aware literature, the author slotting himself into the narrative, but often in alternate form, with almost dark doppelganger versions of himself stalking the pages, leaving the reader uncertain of whether he is telling the story, or whether the story is telling him.
Maas himself remains a cipher. His life is a series of red herrings and false trails, of legends and spectacle, rumours, hearsay and experimentation. Yet there remains little evidence of his existence, save for the sparingly described postmodern masterpieces that defined an era and cemented his fame, threatening to create a rift of some kind into another version of reality.
When we project our desires and feelings onto someone else, do we create a hybrid version of them and us, not quite either person, yet not a distinct figure in their own right? This is a book of shadows and mirrors, of endless Russian dolls and locked rooms, horrible secrets trapped inside them.
Turn the pages of the book and you’ll find yourself tumbling down a rabbit hole that may be difficult to escape.
Find out more
The Unauthorised Biography of Ezra Maas on Goodreads and Amazon
Daniel James recently featured in my interview series, the Year of the Debut Author. You can find out more about how he came to write the book here.
Thanks to Dan for sending me a copy of the novel. All opinions are my own – this is not an authorised review from The Maas Foundation!